


Breathless

by glackedandmullered



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Asthma attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 22:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1582538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glackedandmullered/pseuds/glackedandmullered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael thought his asthma was behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

Dust. 

Who get’s fucking killed by dust?

 _Of course it would be me_ , Michael thought as he leaned against the wall of one of the unfinished rooms, a wheeze escaping his throat and a sharp stab of panic spiking through his brain. 

Asthma had been something Michael hadn’t had to deal with for a good six or seven years now, he’d been hit hard with it in his childhood, but it dissipated in his teens before seemingly stopping altogether. Long gone were the days when he would keep an inhaler in his pocket at all times and a couple of spares in his jacket and bag just in case; there was a single one lying around somewhere, whether it was back at his apartment or - hopefully - in his desk he didn’t know. He could only hope someone would happen across it or him before he suffocated on the concrete. 

The new building was mainly done, most rooms finished and painted, walls up and equipment fitted; but there were still a few parts to the building that were as if no one had touched them. A few rooms that were lined with builders sheets, with ladders against the walls and all sorts of dust and debris scattered, just waiting to be kicked up and inhaled by an unsuspecting victim. 

Boredom was a nuisance. In his line of work there was always a lot of waiting to be done; videos rendering, then uploading, files downloading, everything and anything he had to do took time. So much goddamn time. In the old building it was simply a case of visit Lindsay in the warehouse, get a snack from the kitchen, or even go back to his apartment and fuck around with nothing for a while, but then everything had been so close together. Now their office was a fucking trek from anything else and he didn’t think the fridge was worth the effort, and Lindsay wasn’t even working. The new house that the six achievement hunters had moved into was a good twenty minute drive away and that was certainly not going to happen. 

As he watched the render tick over from 20% to 21% he sighed and leaned back in his chair. The office was empty, quiet and empty and fucking boring. The guys were all off fuck knows where doing fuck knows what, so no Gavin to play fight with or Ray to annoy while he tried to complete his own work so, slowly, with every rise in percentage, boredom was settling in. Michael paced the office in a circle, once, twice...six times, tossing his banjo statue between his hands as he hummed a godawful song that was stuck in his head. He could hear the distant sounds of construction workers as they tried to finish as much as they could for the day and curiosity got the better of him when he saw another two percent had crept onto the bar and he figured he was in for the long haul. 

_I’m going for a fucking walk,_ he announced to himself with a sigh of frustration.

He wasn’t used to the new building, not even close yet. The arrangement of who sat with who and what went where was a whole new level of confusing, but it gave him something to do as he peeked in around doors and took in the changes. The other side of the building; or at least he assumed it was there, he had become quite turned around somewhere between Barb’s office and the second bathroom, everything was a mess. They hadn’t even started on this area, probably doomed to be a storage space for props and costumes, all those goodies. The walls were unpainted and still had small sections of drying filler across the cracks, sheets that had soaked up many coats of paint in their time lined the floor, chipped plaster and sawdust mixed together in the pile.

He was unlucky for three reasons; one, he had chosen a room with a still unfinished floor, two, when he tripped over a hidden dent under the sheets he happened to land face first in the pile of dust, and three, the entirety of this half of the building was empty. Empty enough for no one to hear the first strangled breath that Michael drew in with a thick coating of dust in his throat. Too startled to scream, all too soon that became an impossible task and panic set in.

So many years without an attack had caused Michael to forget how utterly terrifying they were. The way his airway closed to the width of a crushed straw, and how it barely took three wheezing breaths to throw him off balance. Staggering sideways, he used the wall as leverage to keep himself on his feet long enough to get to the hallway. It seemed that the room had stretched by miles, exhausting him beyond measure, and making every step more and more difficult until he found himself leaning over, one hand clutching his chest as his ribcage began to burn from the force of his attempted breathing. 

He coughed once, and then again when the forced exhale did nothing to expand his airway, each cough was useless, expelling more air from his lungs than he had to spare. His heart was beating rabbit fast in his chest, the blood roaring in his ears and he fell to his knees as his muscles turned to jelly. By now he was really panicking, he knew he was about to pass out, but if he did then there was no way anyone would find him and he would actually die on the floor of Stage 5. His eyes were watering, no doubt bloodshot from the effort of trying to breathe, and felt as if they would burst from the pressure at any moment. Writhing on the ground, body arching off the ground, he made one last ditch effort of thumping the side of a weakly clenched fist against the plasterboard, the pathetic attempt was all he could manage before he was lost into the blessed darkness encroaching on his vision.

The minute waiting felt like a millennia but suddenly, “Michael!” The shout came out of nowhere, he couldn’t place the voice but someone landed heavily on their knees beside him and rolled him onto his back. He barely recognised Burnie through the heavy blur marring his vision, could hardly even recognise him when he was mere inches from his face. Burnie’s lips were moving fast, but no words reached Michael’s ears through the roaring waves. He let out another strangled exhale, eyes rolling around to look at the door where another blur was stood, waving their arms around erratically. 

That was all Michael knew until a flood of cold, pure oxygen flooded his lungs and he came back to the world with a start. Bright lights were blinding him, blurring together in a dizzying dance around his head; There were hands on him, tugging him until he was airborne for a few seconds before landing back down with a thud on something that was definitely not comfortable. He couldn’t even begin to know who the people buzzing around him were, in the back of his mind a connection was made that someone had probably called the paramedics, but the thought didn’t quite register all the way. 

He had no idea how much time had passed since he had gone walkabout in the building but apparently it was enough for his boyfriends to be done with whatever they had been doing because the next thing in his line of vision was a messy haired Brit. 

“What happened?” That concerned voice sounded like Geoff.

“Don’t know...found him...wasn’t breathing.” Burnies voice was disjointed, the words sounding distressingly jumbled as they filtered through Michael’s headache. The chatter that followed however, had no meaning at all. 

\---

Five men waited. Three in the room and two in the corridor when it was agreed that they could bypass visiting hours for a while as long as it wasn’t the whole group. Geoff, Ryan and Gavin took the spot beside Michaels bed, lounging uncomfortably on the hard hospital chairs, pulled as close to the sleeping lad as possible. Jack had opted to keep Ray company in the hall, stretched out across a bench just down from the door, arm protectively holding his boyfriend to his chest. He had practically growled at the porter who had tried to move them on a while ago and since then no one had come close, so he was letting Ray sleep. This whole thing had been hard on them all, they hadn’t been there for him, for their boyfriend who came so close to death just hours ago. 

Seeing the ambulance parked up as they drove through the gates to Stage 5 had been surprising, seeing Barbara’s face as she sat next to Kara who was holding her tightly was concerning; but nothing had prepared them to see their own boyfriend being wheeled out on a stretcher, plastic mask covering half of his, distressingly pale, face. He was dazed, barely awake when they reached him, and then Burnie had told them that he had stopped breathing… 

A shudder ran down Jack’s spine as he thought about it. 

As soon as they had arrived they had been told to wait outside, having to watch through frosted glass as a group of people in scrubs bustled around Michael, attaching wires and tubes and doing fuck knows what else to keep him alive. They couldn’t be told anything, none of them were the next of kin but , when his Mom was finally contacted, she got straight back to them. Told them he had asthma when he was younger, and that it had flared up again, she didn’t seem the least bit surprised that they had no idea about any of it. 

Geoff was pondering the situation as well, in a hard chair with Gavin resting his head on the older mans knee. He, unlike the others, had been completely unable to sleep; despite the fact that it was almost ten in the morning and they had been there all night he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off his young boyfriend. Michaels monitor had been steady all night, his chest rising and falling in a normal rhythm, he hadn’t been there to see the moment Michael stopped breathing, and he was determined never to see just that. 

Ryan shifted in his chair, causing his phone that had been resting on the arm to clatter to the ground, awake him with a start. Gavin also jolted in his lap and, to Geoffs delight, Michael let out a small gasp and also allowed his eyelids to flutter open. All three jumped up, watching as a small smile appeared on Michael’s face and Geoff quickly walked to the door, opening it and calling to Jack and Ray. They stumbled in quickly, half asleep and joined the others at the side of the bed, watching Michael come to full alertness. 

“Hi.” Michael whispered.

“Hey you, how are you feeling?” Ryan asked softly, Michael shrugged.

“Okay.” 

There was a beat of silence and suddenly Gavin appeared at his side, pulling his hand back and slapping Michael hard on the shoulder. 

“Ow! Gav what the fuck?” Michael snapped, rubbing his sore skin with the palm of his hand, grimacing at the subsequent pull to the skin holding his IV line in. Before Gavin could answer another hand came down on the other shoulder, causing Michael to snap his attention to the other side, where Ray stood, arms crossed, gaze not meeting his eye and a facial expression that was a strange mix of concern and disgruntlement. 

“You nearly died!” Gavin hissed, giving Michael a light shove before flopping back into the chair behind him, pouting. 

“Sorry?” Michael replied, he wasn’t sure if he was meant to apologise for his body being a little bitch and nearly killing him. 

“You should be! We should have known about the asthma, you should have at least told Burnie or Matt when you were hired!” Jack scolded, pointing his finger at Michael more like a disappointed parent than a boyfriend. 

The lad hesitated, “I thought it had gone.” He whispered pitifully, averting his eyes knowing that he was being watched with anger. A collected huff of frustration filled the silence, the shuffling of feet and telltale signs of a conversation going on above his head. 

He was startled when somebody leapt on the bed over him, a mop of black hair tickling his nose as Ray pressed his face into Michael’s chest, arms wrapped tight around him. 

“You fucking scared us you asshole.” Ray whispered, so quietly that it was as if he didn’t want the rest of the world to hear him.

“I’m sorry, Ray.” He whispered just as quietly, laying his arms on Ray’s back and holding him as tightly as he possibly could. He wouldn’t admit to them, but he scared himself too, he’d just have to be more careful. Be more prepared. 

Never let it happen again.


End file.
